Robert Herrick: Life is the Bodies Light (excerpt), from Hesperides, 1648

Tabbies:from the French tabis "striped silk taffeta", "a rich, watered silk," from Middle French atabis (14c.), from Arabic 'attabiya, from 'Attabiy, a neighborhood of Baghdad where such cloth was first made, named for prince 'Attab of the Omayyad dynasty.

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I very much regretted having to crop out part of the visage of the Blue-and-yellow Macaw on the right in the bottom image. The shy expression, in the pleasure of being groomed, is worth a click on the image to view in full.

And for those who might care for a further taste of the exquisite Herrick:

These are all so beautiful. And odd-eyed animals and people always stop you in your tracks. (My dog Edie is odd-eyed and when she fixes you with that intense, energetic stare, it's quite arresting.) Hearing that you are still laid-up because of the dog bite makes me sad and angry all at once. The Herrick lines are inspiring and memorable. I'm ashamed to say that I never looked into the derivation of "tabby" (I have several tabby cats. But I'm happy I know it now. Curtis

Odd-eye mutations (as well as cross-eye mutations) are fairly comment in those beautiful white cats, which, though they tend to be aloof and independent and a bit dimwitted, have always seemed to us to be the angels of the feline world.

It was (obviously) that blue-and-yellow juxtaposition which was the light bulb behind this post. I've been thinking about that combination ever since getting into Goethe's comments on the colours.

(But of course Goethe was always thinking about painting, whereas the natural world has arts of a higher order.)